Adam: "Well, Daddy's is nice, but yours is best. Your's is squishier."

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Hospi~talotics and Hoops

I was at the hospital last night for several hours to check on the clot in my leg and pelvis. My pain has been increasing, leg turning more purple, and foot going numb. My meds were changed last week and we were having a hard time getting the levels to get high enough. They kept me on monitors for an hour and as usual, the baby did great. A scan of my leg showed no increase in the clot size, but the flow in my leg is slow. Baby is growing, so it is probably pressing on the vein, adding to the existing clot pressure and slowing the flow.

They sent us home at 10 PM with a thumbs up. After we got home, old Toby began gagging and throwing up. His breathing was hoarse and labored and I thought maybe he was on his way "out", so I stayed up with him until about 2 AM till he settled down.

I woke in lots of pain at 5:30 and spent a while trying to figure out how to arrange my six pillows with little success. The next two hours were toughies.

I was supposed to go to a Non-Stress Test (NST) this morning, but as I had just had one 12 hours before, I called to cancel. A few hours later a nurse called saying I needed to come in for the test anyway. I was so exhausted and my leg hurt so much, that I just told her I respectfully declined and I'd see her Friday for our next appointment. Then I remembered that at some point in the past dozen conversations with medical staff someone had entered in my chart that I had "refused" medication, which wasn't true, but there it was in ink. Another time when I had asked why they were doing so many of a certain kind of test, the person I asked responded with a line about policy. When I asked later about the test, she replied "I wasn't going to ask you again, I just figured you had refused." I could see that my asking had hurt her feelings, and that questioning had come across as defiance. It is a delicate balance.

So this morning on the phone, I asked the NST nurse, "If I choose not to come in today, is it going to go into my chart that I was uncooperative?" I am focusing all my energy on getting to birth at the South Hospital, and I don't want one off-handed remark entered into my charts to make me appear adversarial and unreasonable.

I have been given a lot of great care through all this, and been treated with immense kindness and dedication in most cases. In many cases I have yielded to the protocols because I am just so tired, or because even though I didn't agree with a particular protocol in a small matter, the anger I might generate in people who could later make choices that would effect the outcome of my care wasn't worth the risk.

So I am going in tomorrow for yet another NST (even though I will be back there on Friday, and even though the baby is fine, kicking constantly and has been fine for EVERY SINGLE TEST they have given it). It's all politics. I am re-learning how to play the game. Give-in here so that you can get what you need there. It is an alien world to me after all these years of very collaborative pregnancy care.